Educating Family Physicians in Palliative Care

Educating Family Physicians in Palliative Care is funded by the Ministry of Health, Kingston Area Long-term Care Division. There is no registration fee for eligible Family Physicians, only a $325 deposit which will be returned when you complete the course. Registration is limited.

In-person: Kingston, ON

When: Thurs. April 10 to Sun. April 13, 2025

Family Physician Registration

Eligibility

Family physicians living within the areas of Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings, Prince Edward, Lanark, Leeds and Grenville, Northumberland, Haliburton, Peterborough, Victoria, and Durham are eligible to participate in the program.

Family physicians who wish to attend but who do not practice in any of the eligible regions may put their name onto a wait list by emailing chris.cornish@queensu.ca. You will be contacted if room is available. The fee to attend will be $325.

Financial Support

Practicing Family Physicians who meet the eligibility requirements may claim up to a maximum of $600 for expenses related to attending this course, such as travel, accommodation and the cost of a locum to cover your practice.

Nurse Practitioner Registration

NEW! Learning Opportunity for Nurse Practitioners

Limited space is now available for Nurse Practitioners from all regions.

Fee: $325 CAD

Note: Nurse Practitioners do not complete the preceptorship and thus do not receive financial support to cover expenses, but receive a certificate with a statement of learning hours.

This professional learning activity will provide NPs a total of 21 hours of small group learning.

Day 1 Sample

1:00 PM Welcome, Introduction to Palliative Care Initiatives, Objectives & Overview

1:45 PM Pain Mangement

3:15 PM Nutrition Break

3:30 PM Pain Cases

5:00 PM End of Day

Learning Objectives:

Review palliative models of care in their practice.
Identify local (Kingston) palliative care team capacity and organization resources.
Discuss pain, nociception, and basic pain ladder.
Review different opioid formulations, dosing, rotation and side effects.
Provide strategies for particular pains (e.g. neuropathic, bony).
Identify need for advanced pain management techniques (e.g. CADDs, methadone) and interventional strategies (e.g. intrathecal catheters).
Practice using palliative pain management strategies, including opioids, adjuvants, in group case-based discussions.

Day 2 Sample

7:30 AM Continental Breakfast

8:00 AM Frailty as a Guide to Decision Making

9:00 AM Goals of Care Discussion and Role Play

9:30 AM Palliation of Nausea & Vomiting

10:00 AM Nutrition Break

10:30 AM Constipation and Anorexia/Cachexia

11:25 AM Malignant Bowel Obstruction

12:00 PM Lunch

12:45 PM GI Cases

1:30 PM Oncology & Palliative Care Issues

2:30 PM Nutrition Break

2:45 PM Bereavement and Grief

3:30 PM Spirituality in Medicine

4:15 PM End of Day

Learning Objectives:

Integrate palliative care principles into care of patients with frailty.
Discuss advance care planning, goals of care, and consent in the context of their patient and situation.
Develop a plan of care based on discussions with patients and substitute decision-makers.
Identify causes of nausea and vomiting in the palliative care setting.
Utilize pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic approaches to manage nausea and vomiting in palliative patients.
Identify the pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic approaches to constipation and diarrhea in clinical practice.
Discuss prevalence and management of anorexia/cachexia in palliative patients.
Recognize the prevalence and causes of malignant bowel obstructions.
Discuss treatment of partial and complete malignant bowel obstruction.
Practice managing nausea, vomiting, constipation, and malignant bowel obstruction through case-based group discussions.
Recognize how different types of chemotherapy and radiation regimens fit into a patient's goals.
Identify the role of radiation and medical oncology in symptom management and palliative emergencies.
Describe the side effects of oncology treatments and how to manage them.
Discuss the provision of bereavement and grief follow-up.

Discuss the importance of spirituality in holistic care.
Utilize a suggested format for eliciting a patient's spiritual history.

Day 3 Sample

7:30 AM Continental Breakfast

8:00 AM Dyspnea & Palliative Care in Non-Malignant Diseases

9:15 AM Cases: Dyspnea & Palliative Care in Non-Malignant Diseases

10:00 AM Nutrition Break

10:15 AM Emergencies in Palliative Care

11:15 AM Delirium

12:00 PM Lunch

12:45 PM Care of the Imminently Dying Patient

2:00 PM Continuous Palliative Sedation Therapy and Definition of MAiD

2:15 PM Nutrition Break

2:30 PM Continuous Palliative Sedation Therapy and Definition of MAiD (continued)

3:15 PM Cannabis in Palliative Care

4:15 PM End of Day

Learning Objectives:

Discuss the role of palliative care in treating non-malignant illness: cardiovascular, respiratory, renal and neurologic (including dementia).
Practice using palliative symptom management strategies for non-malignant diseases in case-based group discussions.
Identify various palliative care emergencies.
Discuss potential management options considering the goals of care, and location of care, of the patient.
Identify clinical presentations of delirium and recognize the etiologies, in patients receiving palliative care.
Implement non-pharmacological and pharmacological options for delirium management strategies aligning with the goals of care of a patient.
Identify the symptoms and trajectory of imminently dying patients.
Discuss the terminology and definitions related to continuous palliative sedation therapy.
Integrate guidelines and recommendations for use of continuous palliative sedation therapy.
Contrast palliative sedation with MAiD.
Evaluate the evidence for medical cannabis in palliative care.
Provide clear instructions on how to authorize cannabis for palliative care patients.
Discuss the impact of legalization of recreational marijuana on palliative care.

Day 4 Sample

8:00 AM Continental Breakfast

8:30 AM Prognostication in Palliative Medicine

9:30 AM Home Supports and Practical Tips

10:00 AM Nutrition Break

10:15 AM Home Supports and Practical Tips (continued)

11:15 AM Consolidating Palliative Care Cases & Wrap-up

12:00 PM Course Ends - Take-out Lunch

Learning Objectives:

Describe the components of prognostication.
Apply an approach to formulating a prognosis, based on patterns of functional decline and disease-specific indicators of poor prognosis.
Discuss the process for communicating prognostic information with a patient and their family/caregivers.
Integrate key resources to provide end-of-life care in the home.
Prepare for an expected death at home.
Utilize palliative billing codes.
Evaluate aggregate palliative care cases to solidify knowledge from the course.

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